When conducting SEO operations, you should also analyze the traffic of the optimized site. Without this, it is difficult to determine the effectiveness of the decisions made to achieve higher positions in the search results. Google Analytics comes to the rescue. Using Google Analytics is completely free, which is rare when such an extensive application is available to everyone.
Google Analytics is a tool for collecting statistics and data about website users. This is because the website hosts special Javascript code that retrieves relevant data from users visiting your website. The collected data is sent to Google Analytics and presented in the form of extensive tables, charts and summaries. Basic information about users that can be obtained using the tool from Google:
how they found the site (search engine, direct, social networks, referrals from other sites),
how they behave after visiting the site (average time spent on the site, new and returning users, bounce rate, how many pages they visited),
location (country, province, city),
what software they use (browser, device type, operating system).
All this data, correctly analyzed, can contribute to the appropriate improvement (optimization) of the website and its better adaptation to the target group.
How to start using Google Analytics?
You can link your site to Google Analytics in just a few steps.
- Register on the site.
- Then go to the "Administration" tab.
- Select the new account option.
- Add an account name (label appears after logging in to make it easy to find the service).
- Add site name / URL / category / time zone.
After completing the form above, you will be redirected to download a tracking code to be placed on every subpage of your website.
After the tracking code has been successfully added to the website you are viewing, you should wait for the first collected data to appear. The update happens once a day.
The main tab you need to visit is the general audience.
In the form of a graph, there is a number of visits on a given day (you can set the view of the hour, day, week or month in the analyzed period).
Below the chart are:
- Sessions - the number of visits to the site.
- Users - The number of users visiting the site.
- Page Views is the total number of page views i.e. switching between subpages of the site.
- Pages/session is nothing but page/session view ratio (the average number of subpages visited during a session).
- Session Duration - Provides information about the average session duration (time spent on the site).
- The bounce rate is the percentage of visits that end after viewing one page.
- % New Sessions - Shows how many new users have visited the page.
- The list of demographic data, system or mobile traffic is presented under the described section.
In addition to recipient information, Analytics offers access to a lot of other data. For example, there is a possibility:
- find out which landing pages the user lands on,
- examine how behavior moves between subpages,
- analyze live data,
- experiment and study behavior.
Summary
Google Analytics is a free tool for collecting valuable data from various sources, allowing you to analyze it accurately and draw appropriate conclusions. Nowadays, information is highly valued, which, if used correctly, can contribute to a better business prosperity. Now that you know how to integrate your website with Google Analytics, you can take full advantage of its powerful features.